


I took these twigs you left me and I built myself a church

by meredyd



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Gen, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meredyd/pseuds/meredyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I heard about Madoka,” she says. “So I wasn’t afraid.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I took these twigs you left me and I built myself a church

Our Lady Of Perpetual Hope is made of a rosy white marble, smooth and cold to the touch. Girls filter in and out in their damp school uniforms and winter coats, ushered by teachers and doctors, music swelling gently upwards from above the pews. It’s been a long time since Homura was here and she shivers with the strange mix of nostalgia and unfamiliarity. These girls do not remind her of herself, so long ago - they are all of them looking like they want to be here. Some of them hold hands, laughing together in tight little groups. She keeps an eye out for the glint of Soul Gems on chains or tucked into twintails and sees them once she’s started: blue and purple and red and green and orange and every color in between. 

Homura slips herself into a pew against the back wall, and pays little attention to the service. 

This church and school is connected to the hospital, and it’s where she spent her childhood. A mission school - children left or sent away, mostly Japanese but some Europeans, all of them unable to be cared for in their homes for whatever reason. Homura had come when she was too young to remember much, but old enough to remember a little.

They hadn’t asked her where the money had come from, because there had been so much.

“Make this a good place for the girls to live,” Homura had said, and flipped her hair, and smiled only just enough. She had grown into herself now, lithe and long-limbed, her clothes were black and expensive. “Make sure they’re happy, and taken care of.”

The implication was of course that as of now they weren’t, but no one said a thing.

Homura had monitored construction, the mysterious benefactor who traveled in from the city, and she knew the girls made up stories about her and whispered her name in private conversation. 

“That’s Miss Akemi,” says a tall, redheaded girl, gesturing to her smaller friend with short brown hair and glasses too large for her face. “Go talk to her, Sara!”

Sara looks at the ground, steels herself, and Homura sees her approach, clutching something in her hand.

“My friends and I wanted to thank you for doing this,” she says, and she’s not as shy as Homura expected her to be. 

“It’s my pleasure,” says Homura. “What’s that you have there?”

Sara’s hand falls open.

The Soul Gem is a pale, unclouded turquoise blue. 

“Do many of the girls…?” asks Homura, fingering purple now visible around her own neck. 

“Yes,” says Sara. “A lot of us don’t have much of a chance, otherwise.”

“And you?”

“I heard about Madoka,” she says. “So I wasn’t afraid.”

Homura sighs. She takes the girl’s hand in her own, it’s thin and cold even through her gloves. 

“No,” Homura says, quietly. “And you shouldn’t be.”

**Author's Note:**

> I realized by chance that I finished watching Madoka this day last year (!), so I figured I'd finally cross-post this. MERRY MADOKA.


End file.
